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2ndQuadrant

Supplier Focus: Open Source

Based in Oxford and with several offices in major cities around the world, 2ndQuadrant Ltd provides support, training, services and publications to organisation using the open source PostgreSQL database management system.Open source databases? The only way to go
From a pure cost basis, open source software products make a compelling commercial proposition and combined with current government initiatives there are plenty of reasons for open source to be considered as an essential aspect of any IT strategy.
When it comes to choosing a database platform, the trend is definitely moving towards open source products and the one that now stands out as the preferred choice is PostgreSQL (also referred to as ‘Postgres’).

PostgreSQL has become the favoured database management system for many organisations, either to migrate from fee-based licensed products like Oracle Database or IBM DB2, or for new projects where lower costs are a prerequisite for funding approval. Organisations can see a route to dramatically reduce on-going license fees and support costs or take advantage of extremely low start-up budget requirements. See ‘More about PostgreSQL’ further in this article.

Choosing open source software is seen as the progressive solution to spiralling IT costs across all industries, and certainly with PostgreSQL, the proliferation of instances in mission critical scenarios proves how acceptable this database application has become.

PostgreSQL Support from true experts2ndQuadrant is the leading UK-based company providing PostgreSQL consultancy, training and support. Employing some of the world’s best database experts, and with a diversity of staff around the globe, we continue to contribute to the on-going development of Postgres.

The company has been involved in Postgres development right from the early days of the product’s debut and with many years of experience and an assembled team of the some of the best database developers around, we can enable businesses and public sector organisations of every size to either migrate or start new projects with total confidence.

Whilst headline-grabbing installations of PostgreSQL are not so evident in the public sector today, the truth is that Postgres is the backbone of many substantial and vital services supporting a variety of key public services.

For example, a leading NHS patient data systems provider uses Postgres for its main database, giving both tremendous value and flexibility to the NHS that simply wouldn’t be possible using a substantially more expensive fee-based commercial database platform.

Outside of the public sector, we work closely with several large international banking organisations, one of whom confidently uses Postgres for their payment gateway database. This is testimony to commercial robustness of PostgreSQL and the high level s of security and integrity this database system offers.

From the most complex to the simplest of projects - we can help2ndQuadrant is the key commercial partner in the EU funded AXLE Project (Advanced Analytics for Extremely Large European Databases), working with a diverse group of researchers covering hardware, database kernel and visualisation - experts all focused on solving the needs of extremely large data analysis. This research will benefit users with the outcomes included in future releases of PostgreSQL.

Our team is ready to support public sector organisations at any level of involvement, whether you’re looking at PostgreSQL for a specific project or simply want to understand more about how we could help. From migration assessments and programmes to new implementations, from training to consultancy, we can provide the full range of services and expertise you need.

The breadth and length of expertise that 2ndQuadrant has accumulated means a programme of support can be tailored to even manage the transition of live projects into the PostgreSQL environment. Our exclusive focus on PostgreSQL means no dilution of skills and ensures the quality our work is of the highest standard. We have also published a number of books, written by our founder and CTO, Simon Riggs and senior Postgres consultants, to guide database administrators and architects.

Mission Critical Support - Guaranteed2ndQuadrant is the only organisation to provide a ‘carrier-grade’ Production Support service (called Platinum Production Support) which offers a guaranteed (human) response within 15 minutes, a 4 hour workaround and 24 hour fix. This service is ideal for mission critical instances of PostgreSQL. We recently launched this service to support the needs of the most demanding organisations’ requirements and it affirms the role of PostgreSQL in most critical and essential environments.